Just in under the wire -- my 100th post of the year!!!
I'm signing up for a challenge to read 22 books off my TBR pile over the next year. The challenge is hosted by Rose City Reader and the sign-up page can be found here.
Links to reviews will be posted below.
1. The Nonesuch by Georgette Heyer
2. A Paris Apartment by Michelle Gable
I am squeezing in one more book review before the end of the year. One of my Christmas presents this year was the biography, Wellington: The Iron Duke by Richard Holmes. I wanted to balance the biography of Napoleon with one of Wellington.
If you’re interested in a very good overview, one that gives a good sense of the man and his accomplishments (though less of a sense of the times), this biography is just right.
For 2022, the second reading challenge I'm signing up for is the Netgalley and Edelweiss challenge hosted by Socrates' Book Reviews. See the sign-up link here.
I'm going for the Silver level- 25 books, with the hopes of getting through my Netgalley queue.
Thank you to Socrates Book Reviews for hosting.
My links will be listed below.
1. The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher
2. Violeta by Isabel Allende
3. Argo by Mark Knowles
4. The Saints of Swallow Hill by Donna Everhart
5. Beautiful Little Fools by Jillian Cantor
6. The Meddler by Kate Archer
7. Heiresses: The Lives of the Million Dollar Babies by Laura Thompson
8. Earl on the Run by Jane Ashford
9. The Lady Tempts an Heir by Harper St. George
10. Unmasking the Duke by Mary Lancaster
11. How to Be a Wallflower by Eloisa James
12. The Great Passion by James Runcie
13. Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths by Natalie Haynes
14. A Perilous Perspective by Anna Lee Huber
15. Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
16. End of the World House by Adrienne Celt
17. Desperately Seeking a Duchess by Christi Caldwell
18. Unmasking the Thief by Mary Lancaster
19. Bloomsbury Girls by Natalie Jenner
20. Remember Love by Mary Balogh
21. How to Steal a Scoundrel's Heart by Vivienne Lorret
22. The Book Woman's Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson
23. Desperate Undertaking by Lindsey Davis
24. The Nurse's Secret by Amanda Skenandore
25. The Rake's Daughter by Anne Gracie
26. Blame it on the Earl by Jane Ashford
27. Elizabeth Finch by Julian Barnes
28. How to Woo a Wallflower by Virginia Heath
29. The Many Daughters of Afong Moy by Jamie Ford
30. Friends in Funchal by K.G. Fleury
31. The Proposition by Madeleine Roux
32. Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid
33. Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout
34. The Jilter by Kate Archer
35. The Deception by Kim Taylor Blakemore
36. The Belle of Belgrave Square by Mimi Matthews
37. Hester by Laurie Lico Albanese
38. Olav Audunsson III: Crossroads by Sigrid Undset
39. Never Rescue a Rogue by Virginia Heath
It's that time again! Signing up for reading challenges.
I'm starting with The Historical Fiction Reading Challenge hosted by The Intrepid Reader. The sign-up link with rules is here.
Last year I went for the "Ancient History" level, 25 books, and blew right past it. I squeaked past the next level, "Prehistoric"- 50 books. So this year, I'm going out on a limb and setting 50 as my challenge.
To wrap-up last year, a link to my 2021 challenge with links to all review is here.
I'll tally my 2022 books with links to reviews below.
Thank you to The Intrepid Reader for Hosting again!
1. The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher
2. Universe of Two by Stephen Kiernan
3. The Master by Colm Toibin
4. Violeta by Isabel Allende
5. The Nonesuch by Georgette Heyer
6. Argo by Mark Knowles
7. The Saints of Swallow Hill by Donna Everhart
8. Beautiful Little Fools by Jillian Cantor
9. The Meddler by Kate Archer
10. Lady Odelia's Secret by Jane Steen
11. Earl on the Run by Jane Asher
12. The Lady Tempts an Heir by Harper St. George
13. The Illness Lesson by Clare Beams
14. Unmasking the Duke by Mary Lancaster
15. The Paying Guest by George Gissing
16. The Siren of Sussex by Mimi Matthews
17. How to Be a Wallflower by Eloisa James
18. The Great Passion by James Runcie
19. Ireland by Frank Delaney
20. Goodbye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton
21. A Perilous Perspective by Anna Lee Huber
22. Archangel by Andrea Barrett
23. The Runaway Duchess by Joanna Lowell
24. Desperatelty Seeking a Duchess by Christi Caldwell
25. Unmasking the Thief by Mary Lancaster
26. Bloomsbury Girls by Natalie Jenner
27. Remember Love by Mary Balogh
28. How to Steal a Scoundrel's Heart by Vivienne Lorret
29. Arthur & George by Julian Barnes
30. The Book Woman's Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson
31. Desperate Undertaking by Lindsey Davis
32. The Dickens Boy by Thomas Keneally
33. The Nurse's Secret by Amanda Skenandore
34. The Devil and the Viscount by Mary Lancaster
35. The Rake's Daughter by Anne Gracie
36. Blame it on the Earl by Jane Ashford
37. How to Woo a Wallflower by Virginia Heath
38. Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch by Rivka Galchen
39. Friends in Funchal by K.G. Fleury
40. Louisville Saturday by Margaret Long
41. The Proposition by Madeleine Roux
42. Thief of Dreams by Mary Balogh
43. Names on a Map by Benjamin Alire Saenz
44. The Jilter by Kate Archer
45. The Deception by Kim Taylor Blakemore
46. Prize for the Fire by Rilla Askew
47. The Belle of Belgrave Square by Mimi Matthews
48. Hester by Laurie Lico Albanese
49. Olav Audunsson III: Crossroads by Sigrid Undset
50. The Anatomy Lesson by Nina Siegal
51. Never Rescue a Rogue by Virginia Heath
52. A Matter of Class by Mary Balogh
53. Traces: A Novel by Patricia L.Hudson
All the Living by C. E. Morgan is a short gritty contemporary novel set on a hardscrabble Kentucky tobacco farm.
But Orren’s life is upended when his mother and older brother are killed in a car accident and he inherits the farm. He has to take on a huge responsibility at a young age. He asks Aloma to come with him and she says yes, without hesitation. But almost immediately, she begins having regrets.
Orren is swamped by work and by grief. Aloma is overwhelmed by loneliness and dissatisfaction. Worst of all, they are unable to effectively communicate.
Aloma finds solace at a local church where she is given a job playing piano for the services. Eventually, she is permitted to use the instrument for practice during the week. She spends more and more time there, away from the farm, both because of the piano and because of the preacher. Because Aloma and Orren are not married, she didn’t mention him at first. And then she doesn’t mention him because of a growing attraction between herself and the preacher.
The novel evokes the dirty, backbreaking labor of the farm, the monotony of the days, the loneliness, the fear of failure, and the difficulties of a struggling relationship when neither partner knows the right way to express their feelings. It’s a poignant, beautifully written story. I found myself wishing I could revisit the protagonists in a few years to see how they make out.
After reading Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout, I discovered I’d missed reading Anything is Possible, a collection of short stories in the same vein as Olive Kitteridge, but in the same “universe” as My Name is Lucy Barton and Oh William!. So I added it to my TBR pile and finally sat down to read it.
I don’t know why I always read things that are painful right around the holidays, but this book is this year’s emotionally draining work of fiction.
There is a beauty in the stories, as in all Strout’s work. Most of the characters are resilient and have the capacity to be kind. But there is just so much sadness in their lives. So much cruelty. It seems to some degree to be exaggerated, because everyone has so much pain to overcome, but then I think that the realism of that is what makes her books so poignant.
I’ve heard that reading fiction is important for the development of empathy. For me, that’s what Strout’s books are all about. No one does empathy quite as well as she does.
Rebecca’s Tale by Sally Beauman is a reexamination of Daphne du Maurier’s classic gothic tale Rebecca. Although I loved Rebecca when I read it several years ago, it’s a book that leaves the reader with a lot of questions. Who was she really and how did she die? The narrator of the novel is the second wife, Rebecca’s replacement, so her interpretation is bound to be biased.
Sally Beauman comes at the story obliquely, using three new narrators and a fourth, Rebecca herself.
The second protagonist is Terrence Gray, a young historian who has come to town to work part-time at the local archives, cataloguing the de Winters’ papers. He is very interested in the mysterious Rebecca and has befriended Julyan and Ellie in order to learn what the Colonel knows. The Colonel is slow to trust him. Ellie falls for him. But the reader soon learns that Gray himself has a mysterious connection to Rebecca. At least, he thinks he does – but doesn’t know what it is. He’s as intriguing and multi-layered a character as Rebecca.
The third viewpoint we see is Rebecca’s own, through the device of her diaries showing up after all these years. Someone is mailing the diaries and other personal effects once belonging to Rebecca to her few surviving friends/relatives. Eventually, Julyan, Gray, and Ellie read these diaries. Each has a different reaction to them. Even in her diaries, Rebecca is an unreliable narrator.
Finally, the fourth narrator is Ellie. She has grown up knowing and not knowing the story of Rebecca, only ever approaching her through the stories she’s heard. She’s curious about her but also frustrated with the hold the woman still has over her father and now, over Terrence Gray. But with the arrival of the diaries, she feels she finally understands the woman. Rebecca’s influence changes the course of Ellie’s life too.
This book does a beautiful job of echoing the gothic, mysterious air of the original, while expanding beyond the claustrophobic atmosphere of Manderley (the de Winters’ estate) to include other characters and other locales. Rebecca is given a backstory.
As the four narrators piece together Rebecca’s life and events leading to her death, the murky picture presented in the original becomes a little clearer. But only a little. In the end, Rebecca remains a mystery. As she should.
I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.
Nevertheless, Keegan has written a loving and lovely book. It focuses on one man, who was born out- of-wedlock himself, but who was raised in a safe, caring environment due to the kindness and compassion of one person.
The man, Furlong, grew up and overcame the stigma of illegitimacy. He worked his way up in a coal yard that he now runs. He married and had four daughters. He loves his family and works hard to provide for them. Times are hard in his town. A lot of people are suffering, but he and his family are getting by better than most. He’s grateful for that and is generous to those who are worse off. But he nevertheless feels oppressed by something. It might be the lingering feeling of inadequacy from not knowing who his father was. It could be a bit of survivor’s guilt, since he is more financially secure than many of his customers and neighbors. It could be the annoying sense that his wife is so intent on meeting their family’s needs that she is a little resentful of his charitable inclinations.
Just before Christmas, Furlong delivers coal to the convent up on the hill and is confronted by the truth of the rumors about the place. He sees girls are being mistreated. He learns that babies are also being neglected. He knows he’s supposed to keep silent about it. In fact, he’s warned that he should keep silent about it or risk the Church’s displeasure, which would have consequences for his own family. Furlong has to decide what, if anything, he is willing to do.
It’s a beautifully written story that manages to be both chilling and uplifting. Highly recommended!
I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.
Providence picks up where Vows left off. The ill-fated young lovers, Olav and Ingunn, have finally been reunited after years and years of separation, guilt, and despair. They suffered extreme hardship due in large part due to cruelties of their families and society, but also due to their own small errors which were compounded by even greater sins. One thing kept leading to another in that book and they really did seem cursed by Fate. But they are now in a position to find that love will conquer all.
It does not.
Providence is a powerful and devastating book. Set in medieval Norway, the landscape is frozen and harsh. Men are dragged off to war by their kings for conflicts in which they have little stake. And God is ever present in their lives as a force that is more oppressive than hopeful. Reaching out for His grace has far-reaching consequences. Neighbors are far less forgiving than God.
Olav Audunsson is now master of a wealthy estate. He brings his wife Ingunn home. He fully intends to put the past behind them and forgive her completely. (She had a child during their years of separation, a son, born after an adulterous encounter that was less her fault than she believes it to be.) She’s unable to forgive herself. When she miscarries again and again, she comes to believe that it’s God’s punishment for her adultery and, more particularly, for abandoning her son. Olav is unable to bear her misery, so he goes and retrieves the boy from the foster parents, claiming him as his own.
This means the familial inheritance will go to an illegitimate heir who is not really Olav’s offspring. If Olav’s relatives ever found out, he’d be in big trouble for allowing the estate to pass outside the family line. It also means if Olav and Ingunn ever do have a son, he’ll take second place to the older boy. For all Olav insists it doesn’t matter to him, it does. He treats the boy as decently as he can, but he just doesn’t like him. And this drives even more of a wedge between him and his wife.
Ingunn is not the only one sunk in despair over a guilty conscience. There is also the matter of Olav’s crime. He murdered the man who seduced Ingunn and hid the evidence. All to protect her honor, of course. He grows increasingly desperate to make his peace with God but if he confesses, he’ll have to do penance, the truth will come out, and everything gained by the original secrecy will be lost. Ingunn and the boy will be harmed. Ingunn insists he can’t do that to her. So he continues to live with the unconfessed sin, growing more and more taciturn and withdrawn.
Ingunn is not a healthy woman to begin with and multiple miscarriages strip her of any strength she might have had. She’s also a terrible housekeeper/female head of an estate. The only time she shows any gumption is in defense of her son. She’s a shadow of her former self. She loses all her beauty. She’s a millstone around Olav’s neck. And yet, they still love each other with the fiercely strong remnants of their original love.
Things go from terrible to unbearable as Olav and Ingunn struggle with their despair. Every once in a while, Olav is overcome by religious conviction, but it’s leached away by Ingunn’s dependency and the knowledge that her ruined life is his fault.
This book is incredibly bleak, as this pared down plot summary shows. And yet it’s beautiful in its harsh way. The characters are so realistic, so human, that it’s impossible not to empathize with their pain.
I don’t know when Book 3 will be released but I’ll certainly read it, hoping things might turn around for Olav, but expecting they won’t.
Every once in a while I like to read a book about reading books. This time, I chose Why I Read: The Serious Pleasure of Books by Wendy Lesser. Her credentials for this sort of work are outstanding. She’s a professional reviewer, the founder and editor of The Threepenny Review, and has authored several (mostly nonfiction) books.
She writes the book as a conversation, inviting the reader to silently engage with her. To some extent, that engagement came about naturally as I either fervently agreed with her or thought: I’m not sure I agree, or I don’t quite understand. But some chapters were more engaging than others.
The book ends with a list of 100 books to read for pleasure, some of which were discussed in the text and others which were not. This is both a great jumping off point for more reading and a bit of a burden for someone whose TBR pile is already heaped up and tottering over.
Overall, I enjoyed the book but I didn’t feel it lived up to the promise of the prologue.
I saw matrix by Lauren Groff was getting a lot of buzz in the historical fiction world. Then I read it was set in an abbey in medieval England, in the twelfth century. The protagonist, Marie, is an illegitimate noblewoman. Her father was Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, establishing a connection of sorts to Eleanor of Aquitaine. My favorite family in my favorite historical time period—I had to read it.
Marie is headstrong, passionate, intelligent, and fierce (much like Eleanor, who she loves and idolizes.) The arc of the novel is the process by which Marie comes to terms with the life she will have to live and then turns the abbey into a monument of female empowerment. Marie is able to turn the abbey not only into an enormously prosperous one, but also a haven for women where they can thrive according to their talents. Marie is an ambitious, prideful woman, but she is also generous and loving. Her theology is unorthodox, to say the least, but her devotion to her charges is complete.
This is a powerful literary work with luminous prose that pulled me into the twelfth century. Marie is a woman of her time and ahead of her time. Highly recommended.
I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.
Mary Lancaster’s latest Regency Romance release is Book 3 in her Pleasure Garden series, Unmasking Sin.
Lady Rebecca Cornish is this novel’s heroine. Although in her early twenties, she has already been widowed twice, earning her the title of Black Widow. Her reputation is further tarnished by accusations that she murdered her most recent husband (and probably first husband as well.) Rebecca is being besieged by her late husband’s uncles who are waging a campaign to see her prosecuted and to take away her son to be raised more respectably.
To that end, they have hired solicitor/investigator Ludovic Dunne to find proof that she killed their nephew. Dunne has a solid reputation for this kind of work and he trails Lady Cornish to the Pleasure Gardens, expecting to find she has slipped out for an assignation.
Instead, he finds a composed, extremely beautiful woman, whose vulnerability and fear he senses. He continues to investigate, but shortly realizes he is on the wrong side of this investigation. He works to uncover the truth, which he is certain will exonerate her, but in the process loses her trust.
The plot centers on finding out who is behind the rumors and what they stand to gain from them, rehabilitating Lady Cornish’s reputation, and, at the same time, unearthing the reason for Dunne’s crusading efforts against injustice of all kinds. Along the way, they fall in love.
This is a fast-paced adventure with strong male and female leads. The good guys are very good. The bad guys are nasty villains. It’s a fun Romance for whiling away a few hours.
As part of my plan to increase my knowledge of the Regency Era, I thought I really needed a better handle on Napoleon. I knew the basics: French General, French Emperor, lover of Josephine, defeated at Waterloo. Also that he was not only a brilliant military commander but also an innovative administrator. But, overall, kind of a bad guy.
This is a comprehensive birth-to-death biography. The bulk of the detail is centered on his military career, which makes sense. However, for a reader like me who zones out when the battle tactics are described in depth and who skips over battlefield maps, it was more than I needed. It was fascinating in a big picture way, but the details will never stick with me.
More impressive to me was the way the book touched on the personality of the emperor, showing his hubris and his (possibly feigned at times) humility, his wit, his sang-froid, and his extraordinary charisma. His micro-managing attention to detail boggles the mind. His superhuman energy (especially in his younger days) is hard to fathom. And his intelligence, memory, and analytical skills are as impressive today as they were to his contemporaries.
It’s impossible to come away from this biography unimpressed with Napoleon. At the same time, without the benefit of being exposed to his personal charm, it was impossible for me to come away from it favorably impressed in the balance. The wake of death and destruction his ambitious empire building left across Europe was enormous. And despite his protestations that everything he did, he did for France – he was clearly doing it for personal glory and profit. I found myself astonished by the magnitude of his victories, yet rooting against him the whole time.
I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.
That said, Someone Perfect was a bit disappointing. It was a sweet romance with emotional depth and fine characters. But too many new folks were introduced who didn’t seem important to the plot. It may be a setup for future books, but I won’t remember them all by the time their books are out. And there was too much repetition. We’d be led by the hand into a scene so we’d know what to expect, the lovely scene would unfold as expected, and then one of the protagonists would, with internal monologue, repeat for us what had just occurred. A little less of that would have made the novel more engrossing.
Justin Wiley, the Earl of Brandon, was a sweet happy child, even with the death of his mother in an accident when he was ten. He handled the remarriage of his father to a woman who seemed to quarrel with everyone. He had a step-sister, fourteen years younger, whom he adored. So, what happened? He was banished from the household in his early twenties and essentially disappeared until his father died. Then he returned to take up the responsibilities of an earl. He immediately sent his stepmother and step-sister to the country and did not visit that sister for two years, until after his stepmother died.
His step-sister, Maria, hates him. She wishes nothing to do with him, even though he had once been the light of her life.
Estelle Lamarr is one of the peripheral Westcotts. She lives quietly in the country with her twin brother. She’s a friend of Maria’s. When Brandon comes to claim Maria and bring her “home,” Estelle is put off by his cold, harsh demeanor. Yet when he asks her to visit his estate to help Maria accommodate to her new situation, Estelle recognizes that he isn’t cruel. She agrees to go.
That is the setup. Brandon has to learn to let his past and present merge, and to let the walls he has built up be broken down. Estelle has to decide whether she really wants to live a secluded life or to be surrounded by people—by family. They both have to learn to be vulnerable and honest with one another.
There are no real surprises here, but the characters are easy to pull for. And I’m glad to be left with the impression that there will be more in the series.
I don’t, as a rule, laugh out loud while reading in a public place. However, I was deeply immersed in Georgette Heyer’s witty comedy of manners, Sylvester, when a fast-paced scene piled up the clever silliness until my giggle could not be contained.
I love Georgette Heyer’s Regency Romances.
Although the style is a little dated and some of the plots start to feel a bit familiar (I suspect she did them first!), the hilarious banter and outrageous situations never fail to entertain. Sex is only hinted at but the passion is strong. Her books are comfort food.
He has numerous acquaintances but only a few close friends. The only two people he truly cares about, after the death of his twin brother, are his invalid mother and his nephew. The boy is only six and is being spoiled by Sylvester’s widowed sister-in-law, whom he despises.
Sylvester is the boy’s guardian and so he needs to marry so that he can take over the boy’s care altogether. (The boy’s mother wouldn’t actually mind that, but recognizes it would look bad for her to abandon her son to Sylvester after she’s been badmouthing him for years.)
Phoebe is a country gentlewoman being raised by her horse-crazy father and a severe stepmother. She is not beautiful and, with her stepmother breathing down her neck, she does not shine in company because she’s so afraid of saying anything wrong. In her favor, her deceased mother was a very close friend of Sylvester’s mother. And her grandmother (if I have this right) is Sylvester’s godmother. Although she is not much of a prize (she had one London Season and didn’t ‘take’) Sylvester considers the match for his mother’s sake.
Phoebe, when apprized of what’s going on, wants none of it. When Sylvester appears at her father’s country home, apparently to woo her, she runs away—into a winter storm accompanied only by a brotherly friend. Sylvester believes himself to have dodged a bullet and so sets off to return to London. But on the way he comes across Phoebe and her friend, who have had an accident on the road.
The two are thrown together away from the hovering and criticism of the stepmother. And they hit it off. Sort of. They also annoy the hell out of each other. But their interactions amuse them both as well as the reader. Their future together seems assured.
Except Phoebe has a secret. After her failed London Season, she wrote an anonymous novel skewering the ton. A publisher picked it up. It will soon be released. The villain of the piece was based on Sylvester because of his superciliousness and his devilish eyebrows. She is unable to stop the publication or even change that unmistakable physical description. When the book comes out, everyone recognizes Sylvester. His dignity is assaulted. She could have done nothing worse.
They have to find their way back to one another over the course of a few over-the-top adventures. When I saw where the plot was headed, and how well it had been set up, I laughed out loud some more.
One of these days I will run out of Georgette Heyer novels despite how prolific she was. Then I will have to turn around and read them all over again.
I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.
When I saw The Library: A Fragile History by Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen available on Netgalley, I knew I had to read it.
This new release is a comprehensive history of the library, from idea to execution, with all the myriad cycles of building and destruction (or fading away). It covers the “public” libraries of antiquity, the massive personal libraries of royalty and wealthy men, institutional libraries, subscription libraries, modern-day public libraries, pretty much every form of book collecting for personal use or for sharing. It covers the rise and fall of great libraries alongside the rise and fall of civilizations. It addresses the question of the future of the library. (Have faith! People have been predicting the end of “the book” for as long as there have been books. Libraries, too, will survive in one form or another.)
The Library is an impressive undertaking. It’s comprehensive (a bit lengthy) and detailed (so a bit dry), but my interest never flagged. The resiliency of the library as a concept and as a concrete public service is inspiring. Book lovers, readers and collectors, and all library nerds will find this an interesting and reassuring study of the topic.
I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.
If you’re looking for a beautifully written, richly detailed (detailed about things I’m not overly interested in–tide pool biology, cricket...yet strangely compelling nonetheless) historical novel that will gently tug at your heartstrings, The Woodcock by Richard Smyth is a must read.
The story is told in the first person by two of the main characters, alternating POVs. The first is Jon Lowell, a naturalist who makes his living writing articles for journals (and one book!) about the creatures inhabiting the seashore, the tide pools, of the tiny north England village Gravely. He’s a handsome young man, in his early twenties, though he seems older at first. He lives quietly. He wants to live quietly, absorbed in his odd work, work that is engrossing to him but bizarre or amusing to the other residents of the town.
The second narrator is Harriet Lowell, Jon’s wife. She’s introduced to us that way, as if her role in life is simply that. She’s a native of Gravely, a small town girl. She is surprisingly, and very noticeably, beautiful. (Jon takes some pride in that.) She does love her husband. But she also has a rich inner life that Jon knows nothing about. He’s never bothered to ask. She spends a lot of time with the town preacher, Reverend Aldridge, which annoys Jon only because he doesn’t like the man and is not, himself, religious. Mostly, he doesn’t care what she does with her time so long as she doesn’t inflict the preacher on him. Whether Jon’s absent-ness bothers Harriet or serves her purpose isn’t made clear. Harriet is an insular character, reflective, intelligent, and wounded.
The book opens with outsiders coming to town.
One is Jon’s longtime friend, David McAllister, a successful novelist, lady’s man, handsome, beefy, and brave. Although polar opposites, the two are best friends, soul mates. They make each other laugh. (Their banter is hilarious.) But David is also an alcoholic and a bit of a lost cause.
More momentous is the arrival of the Americans, Maurice Shakes and his two beautiful daughters, Cordelia and Eleanor. Shakes is a man with a dream: he wants to build a tourist attraction to outdo Coney Island, a large pier and amusement park with all the amenities early twentieth century technology can provide, on the shore of backwater Gravely. A beguiling salesman, he cons the people of the town into accepting his vision, all except Reverend Aldridge, who sees it as evil, Harriet, who sees it as dangerous, and Jon, who isn’t against the idea so much as he is mistrustful of change. It seems unlikely the tourist attraction would be good for the local wildlife.
Shakes is a whirlwind and development moves quickly. But more disruptive for our protagonists are the two daughters. Cordelia ensnares David–or maybe doesn’t. And Jon finds himself drawn to Eleanor. It’s painful to read Jon’s self-absorbed pursuit of a woman he barely knows while he justifies his neglect of his wife.
Although the plot is fairly straightforward, there are many swirling undercurrents. They offer a variety of possibilities for resolution – none of them good – so that the story is satisfyingly complex.
I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.
The second book in Pleasure Garden, Mary Lancaster’s new Regency Romance series, is Unmasking Deception, to be released this month. The book stands alone, but the first book, Unmasking the Hero, is a delight, so you may want to read that one first.
Viola Dove is a clever, pretty, adventuresome, but poor young gentlewoman. The fate of her family is in her hands. She must marry for money. However, on a night out with friends (at the Pleasure Garden), she runs into a stranger, Dominic Gorse, who is fleeing from Bow Street Runners. She trusts him instinctively and helps him escape.
The two work together to hide him from the law while they solve the mystery of who actually killed Dominic’s gambling acquaintance.
The hero and heroine are fine characters and the romance between them develops in a believable fashion. The adventure is lively and the side characters entertain. The villain is truly villainous.
Unfortunately, the villain resorts to kidnaping Viola. (This isn’t really a spoiler because the reader can see it coming from a mile away.) While I recognize that Regency Romances recycle plots and recombine elements into new stories all the time, the kidnaping-the-heroine thing is painfully overdone. Or maybe I somehow stumble on a disproportionate number of romances using that device to move the plot along. I managed to plod on past it because the rest of the novel was sweet and fun enough. However, I swear the next time a heroine is kidnaped by a villainous pseudo-suitor, I’m dropping the book at once, not even bothering to see if she requires rescuing by the hero or manages to escape on her own. Both have been done to death.
Aside from that disappointment, I’ll continue to follow the series. Surely there won’t be another kidnaping in the Pleasure Garden series.
Colm Tóibin’s new novel, The Magician, a fictional biography of Thomas Mann, is superb. Using beautifully precise language, in a tone echoing the quintessentially German twentieth century writer, Tóibin takes us inside Mann’s head. It’s a fascinating place to be.
The Magician chronicles Mann’s creative process by showing him gathering inspiration for and piecing together the themes of his masterpieces, but does this with a light hand. The reader is told that Mann retreated to his study every morning to write, but rather than a play-by-play of his daily writing struggles, we see how his creative self-absorption shaped his relationships.
The book humanizes Mann, presenting him as an ordinary man in extraordinary times, who happens to also be a towering literary genius.
Unfortunately, my TBR pile has just grown substantially, as I not only have to read more of Mann but of Tóibin as well.
In the depths of the previous surge of the pandemic, when things were locked down, there were a lot of online events that I wanted to attend. I wish I had sampled more of them while the opportunity was there. One of the events I did “attend” was an author talk at my local independent bookstore. Simon Van Booy spoke about his new novel, Night Came with Many Stars. It’s a literary family saga set in Kentucky. It’s primarily a historical novel, although there are interwoven time frames, some of which are more contemporary.
A parallel plot to Carol’s is set in 1986 and tells the story of Samuel, a kind-hearted boy, and his best friend, Eddy. Samuel has two parents and a developmentally delayed uncle, and the love and support in that family is palpable. They even have it in their hearts to be kind to Eddy, but the boy, raised by a single mother who is flighty and unreliable, cannot catch a break. He gets into trouble again and again. Samuel goes through a rough patch where he almost self-destructs due to a family curse of alcoholism, but gets back on track. (Weird scene here that was the only part of the story that didn’t ring true, IMO.)
There are other characters too, all interesting and all playing a role in the overall story. An omniscient narrator provides vignettes–slices of life-- until the lives of the characters intersect. The writing is beautiful and the storyline is ultimately redemptive. Over time, (it takes generations), the goodness in people overcomes the evil. Even though there are no magical cures for very real difficulties, there is hope.
Thank you to Carmichael’s Bookstore for introducing me to this author!
I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.
I love Elizabeth Strout’s writing. Happily, her newest book, Oh William!, is out this month. It continues Lucy Barton’s story, but the books stand alone. You don’t have to have read My Name is Lucy Barton to appreciate Oh William!, but that earlier novel is so lovely it’s well worth reading.
First, he has begun waking at night with vague terrors, the most common of which is that his deceased mother has come to tell him something.
Second, his wife (his third) leaves him abruptly. He never saw it coming.
And third, while tracing his roots on a genealogy website, he discovers that he has a half-sister. His mother had a daughter before leaving her husband to marry William’s father. She abandoned both her husband and her daughter! William first denies the possibility of this. Then he agonizes over whether or not to try to contact the sister.
Lucy and her ex-husband have a complicated relationship. Despite the pain of their breakup–Lucy left him, in part, because of his rampant infidelity–they have remained close. They are both now also on good terms with their two daughters, though there were certainly rough times in the past. Lucy and William still rely upon one another for support from time to time. They’re older and wiser; however, their personalities have not fundamentally changed. They still know how to push one another’s buttons. And they do. Despite a successful career and a wonderful therapist, Lucy continues to carry the pain of a childhood damaged by poverty, isolation, and abuse. William is aware of her insecurities and is frustrated by them, yet will occasionally stoop to throwing them in her face. They can be wonderfully supportive of one another at some moments, and cruel to one another at others. It is a superbly realistic representation of how relationships can work.
The novel demonstrates the poignancy of aging, the complexities of familial ties, and the fact that no matter how well we know someone we can’t really know them completely. Lucy Barton’s voice draws you in. Elizabeth Strout’s books are highly recommended.
The Regency Years: During Which Jane Austen Writes, Napoleon Fights, Byron Makes Love, and Britain Becomes Modern by Robert Morrison was just the book I was looking for. Drawing heavily on the personalities of the time period, inserting anecdotes throughout, the book does a wonderful job of giving a broad view of the historical events and a close-up view of some of its notable personalities. Fact-filled yet very readable, I got this book from the library, but plan to buy a copy to keep on my shelf.
Regency Romance author Suzanne Allain (The Celebrated Pedestrian and Mr. Malcolm’s List) has a new novel out: Miss Lattimore’s Letter.
Her interference gains the hoped for results. The courtships shift back into the correct pairs and happy marriages ensue.
Then Sophie’s identity as the letter writer is leaked. Sophie becomes a minor celebrity and is sought after for her matchmaking skills. One of those who comes to her for advice is Sir Edmund, an extremely handsome, wealthy, eligible bachelor, whose hesitation around women makes no sense. Although she has a crush on him herself, she agrees to help him meet an appropriate wife.
The parties all move on to Bath. Sophie continues in her engaging way to support her friends, deny that she has any skill at matchmaking, and flirt modestly with Sir Edmund. He seems interested in her, but she can’t believe he could possibly want a penniless spinster. He flirts, then backs off, confusing her. Things may well have progressed towards something more consistent, but they are thrown off track when a man from Sophie’s past appears.
When Sophie was eighteen, she’d fallen head over heels for Mr. Maitland, who had pursued her in earnest, giving society the impression they were all but betrothed. Then he abruptly dropped her and married someone else–a woman of fortune. Mr. Maitland is now a widower with two young children. He begins pursuing Sophie again. He is, unfortunately, the most handsome, charming man in Bath, even eclipsing Sir Edmund.
Sophie doesn’t know what to do. Mr. Maitland is courting her openly. Sir Edmund is much more reserved. She’s enjoying the attention and wants to be married. She just doesn’t know if she’ll end up with two proposals or none.
The novel is witty and sweet. The style is a little old-fashioned but also unconventional for newly released Romance. While primarily in the female protagonist’s point of view, we also get a peek inside the heads of Sophie’s cousin and her aunt, who are on journeys of their own. But we don’t get alternating chapters between the female and male protagonists. We see little to none of Sir Edmund’s thoughts, which helps to keep readers guessing (along with Sophie) as to his intentions. Although, given Romance conventions, his thoughts are not that difficult to guess. Nor is the little twist at the end any great surprise, but it’s entertaining nonetheless.
Allain continues to charm with her clean Regency Romances.
I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.
Romance author Kate Bateman has a new series, Ruthless Rivals, and book one is soon to be released, A Reckless Match. The premise sounded lively and I was pleased to receive a review copy.
Also unfortunately, Maddie’s father has lost a significant sum of money on bad investments. They are near bankrupt. The family’s only hope is to marry her off to someone wealthy– most likely Sir Mostyn, a wealthy, lecherous old goat, who has offered her father 2000 pounds for her. He’s twice Maddie’s age. Everyone in the village dislikes him. Maddie is in a quandary.
Moreover, Maddie has been secretly intrigued by her neighboring enemy, Gryff, since they were tussling children. And he has been fascinated by her. Because of the family history, and because of their own personalities, they can only show their mutual interest by teasing and fighting one another. Certainly, Maddie can’t look to Gryff for marriage and economic salvation.
It’s been a while since they’ve seen one another. Gryff was off fighting Napoleon, returning only when he inherited the title and had to abandon his regiment. As for Maddie, she’s been involved with archaeological explorations on the Montgomery lands. But when Gryff does return, sparks fly. Their bickering picks up where it left off, as does their mutual unacknowledged attraction. While maneuvering to meet up with one another to bicker more, they stumble across a smuggler’s cache of brandy. The plot proceeds as they work together to catch the smugglers and bring them to justice.
This all has the makings of an entertaining romance, but I was not particularly entertained. While there was evidence of an underlying affection between the two, mostly there was a lot of ogling of one another’s body parts and fierce denial of any possibility of mutual regard. It seems that the sparring in their youth consisted of rather intense bullying performed by Gryff, later explained by the fact the he “liked” her, and that’s how boys show they like girls. As an adult, his teasing/bullying takes the form of injecting sexual innuendo into every conversation. Maddie has to pretend she is not intimidated–or titillated– by his suggestive talk. And that was what passed for witty banter. It seemed immature on his part and got tedious to read through.
There was enough to hold my interest in the smuggling plot to finish the book. However, the sibling and cousin pair-ups that were introduced in this book to set up the next books in the series appeared likely to be more of the same, and the romance in this novel was not convincing enough to draw me into the series.
A Lost Lady by Willa Cather is one of the lesser known novels by the author of O Pioneers!, My Antonia and Death Comes for the Archbishop. Published in 1923, this is a lovely classic.
Mrs. Forrester is widely known for her graciousness, her vivacious charm, and her hospitality. Everyone who knows her loves her, although some of the townswomen do so grudgingly. She does act rather superior to other women and tends toward the catty, though that’s not something her many male admirers notice.
The story is narrated by Niel Herbert, a younger man who has admired Mrs. Forrester since he was a boy and she was a young wife. As one of the better educated, better mannered youths of the town, he is able to appreciate her finer qualities. He’s brought up by his uncle, a judge, who is a particular friend of Captain Forrester, so Niel spends many evenings as a young man in the company of the couple. As the Captain ages and his finances decline, Niel helps keep an eye on them. In the process, he discovers that Mrs. Forrester is not as loyal to her husband as he’d thought, a realization that disillusions him but does not completely ruin his image of her.
When the Captain suffers a series of strokes, his wife takes care of him, but with difficulty. She isn’t meant for a life of boredom and drudgery. Often, Niel finds her smelling of alcohol.
Niel escapes Sweet Water for a time, attending architectural college in Boston, but he returns to find the Forresters sunk low and his own uncle ailing. He delays his return to school until after Captain Forrester dies and Mrs. Forrester sinks to new lows. At this point, he gives up on her. It’s only later that he can recall her with any fondness, and even then, he likes to remember her as she was in her vivacious younger days, before his disillusionment.
There is much in the novel glamorizing the settling of the American West, the superiority of the early settlers and ground breakers, contrasted with the inferiority of those in the next generations. Mrs. Forrester’s decline is emblematic of the loss of luster after the closure of the frontier. Niel’s nostalgia for his youth, his memory of Mrs. Forrester as she was, and Sweet Water as it was, make for a melancholy read.
Mary Lancaster has a new Regency Romance series (Pleasure Garden) and book one, Unmasking the Hero, has just been released.
The backstory is that on that same morning, Oliver Harlaw, Earl of Wenning had found a letter that Grace had written to a lover, decrying her “dreadful marriage.” Devastated, Oliver raced to the ship bound for China to pick up his career where he had left it.
Gobsmacked, Grace is forced to face the ton and its gossip alone. She decides to brazen it out by socializing wildly and flirting with all comers. She attracts a large circle of admirers, mostly harmless, and learns how to discourage the men who expect too much. She never crosses the line to actual cheating because even though she hates Oliver for leaving her humiliated her, she loves him still.
Now, Oliver has just returned from two years abroad and must face the wife he discarded but has never ceased to love. During his absence, he’d heard reports of his wife’s wild lifestyle, but also received assurance from a trusted friend that there was no lover in her life.
Oliver is hoping to understand the truth (approaching her—not quite spying, but close to doing so—during a series of masquerades) and to set things right, while Grace, who has learned of his return only from the newspapers and gossip, is bent on revenge.
Suspend disbelief for a bit: yes, it seems farfetched that Grace does not recognize her masked husband right away, but if you accept this, the rest of the plot unfolds in a lively fashion. The protagonists are sympathetic characters who belong together. This is signature Mary Lancaster romance. I look forward to book two.
Can it possibly be three years since I read Dear Mrs. Bird by A. J. Pearce? At the time, I was so charmed by the book that I wished for a sequel. Well, here it is!
Yours Cheerfully by A. J. Pearce continues the adventures of Emmeline Lake, a plucky young woman in WWII London, just before the U.S. enters the war.
Emmy throws herself into her career with the same impulsive enthusiasm (and compassion) that nearly got her fired from the magazine under its previous editor. However, she has matured and is doing her best to approach challenges more professionally. She loves her job. Her boss is wonderful. And she’s in love. Emmy and her best friend, Bunty, deal with war time nastiness with a typically English humor, keeping calm and carrying on.
Even so, Emmy’s resolve not to rush into trouble again is rattled when she gets an assignment to write on female participation in the wartime workforce. It seems the patriotic women are very willing to participate. In fact, some of them are also very much in need of the paychecks (especially the war widows left high and dry by the government on measly pensions that don’t come close to supporting the children of the dead soldiers.) But women are paid less than men. And there is no support for working women with children. (It all sounds depressingly familiar.) The government nominally supports childcare (nurseries) but there are too few, the hours don’t correspond to the round-the-clock shifts the women have to work, and, worst of all, nurseries have to be requested by the factory owners. Some of these factory leaders see no need to petition the government for childcare for their workers. They figure the women should magically deal with the inconvenient kids by themselves. One boss in particular (where Emmy’s friends work) is firing women right and left while simultaneously benefitting from the government’s campaign to get more women into factory jobs.
Seen through Emmy’s compassionate (plucky) eyes, this wartime story manages to charm while also showing the hard realities faced by women on the homefront. Emmy and her friends lift each other up and help each other bear the unbearable. It’s lovely to read.
I suspect there is a book three in the offing. I hope so!
